Dad Sends Chilling Text Just Hours Before Killing Baby For Crying Non-Stop

A man in the Australian state of Queensland who told his girlfriend he was going to "end up killing" his 5-month-old son was sentenced to nearly a decade in prison this week for the child's manslaughter.

Kozan Samuel Thomas Ware, 35, was sentenced Thursday in Brisbane Supreme Court to nine years in prison after pleading guilty to the manslaughter of his son, Adrian Joshua Wommie Ware, The Sydney Morning Herald reported.

Paramedics found a "cold and blue" Adrian unresponsive in his Cleveland, Queensland, home on March 28, 2017, after Kozan reported he could not wake up his son, according to reports by Australian broadcaster ABC and News.com.au. The child was taken to a hospital, but he later died of a head injury.

An autopsy concluded Adrian's cause of death was bleeding inside his head, which was likely caused by shaking or blunt force trauma.

The father said in a police interview that the fatal injury had been caused by Adrian falling out of bed in the days leading up to his death. A post-mortem, however, determined that the injury was "no more than 24 hours" old, the court was told.

It was also revealed to the court that Kozan's girlfriend, Lillian Butterworth Yock, received a text message from Kozan on March 26, 2017, that said he was going to "end up killing this kid (Adrian) soon" because the child would not stop crying and was "p-----g him off."

Yock had left Adrian as well as her two other children with Kozan four days earlier and had not responded to her boyfriend's attempts to contact her in the next several days.

Kozan repeatedly contacted Yock and his sister over the troubles he experienced while caring for the three children. He texted Yock, "Help me," and sent her 27 emojis of screaming or crying faces on the day Adrian died.

Kozan, who was charged with murder 15 months after Adrian's death, later pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of manslaughter.

The guilty plea meant Kozan had accepted "agreed" facts that he caused his son's death by "shaking and/or inflicting blunt force trauma," Crown prosecutor Caroline Marco told the court.

"Ware accepts he is responsible," Marco said.

Kozan's lawyer, Kim Bryson, claimed her client struggled both "financially and emotionally" while he was caring for his son alone. Additionally, she insisted that Kozan's actions were "not born of gratuitous and protracted violence" and that his "distress was obvious" after Adrian died.

Justice Helen Bowskill, who described Kozan's offense as being serious and "terribly tragic," also accepted that the father had acted in "frustration." The magistrate declared during her sentencing that Kozan, who had already served 781 days in custody, would be eligible for parole in April 2023.

Yock's family later told reporters outside the courtroom that they suffered a "great injustice" over the sentence.

"They valued my nephew's life at only four years to be served... we don't find that adequate. We're very upset," Adrian's uncle, Kargun Fogarty, was quoted as saying.

Fogarty claimed the court did not take into consideration the loss of her sister, who has "been living through hell" and suffered "great depression" since her son's death.

"We want our justice too. We want customary law. And we feel that he should be facing a payback spear when he gets out of jail," Fogarty said.